A History of Amnesia

$18.00 SGD

Unapologetic, unafraid and unyielding, Alfian’s second collection of verse delves in greater depth the concerns in his first volume and moves into reclaiming our collective history and memory.

In mining our psyche, he casts light where whispers and shadows lurk. He draws inspiration from censored histories, subsumed myths and invokes imagined voices from the exiled, demanding of the reader to witness the ubiquitous ideological fictions that surround us.

This is one of the most dissonant and penetrating voices in Singapore poetry.

• A History of Amnesia is listed in the notable books list by the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Award (administered by University of San Francisco).• A History of Amnesia is also shortlisted for Singapore Literature Prize in 2004.

About the Author

Born in 1977, Alfian Bin Sa’at was a fourth year medical student at the National University of Singapore when he published A History of Amnesia. His first book of verse, One Fierce Hour, was well-received in Singapore and Malaysia. His collection of short stories, Corridor, won the Singapore Literature Prize Commendation Award in 1998; this was published in 1999.

Alfian Sa’at is also the Resident Playwright of W!LD RICE. His plays have been translated into German, Swedish and Danish, and they have been read and performed in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, London, Berlin, Hamburg, Zurich, Munich, Copenhagen and Stockholm. He has been nominated for the Life! Theatre Awards for Best Original Script seven times, and has received the award twice.

“...seething with anger and sarcasm, Sa'at's second collection of poetry is laced with an undercurrent of bitterness. not so much for himself perhaps, but at the plight of the marginalized and prosecuted, including disgraced Singaporeans such as Chia Thye Poh and Josef Ng. The irony in the title is definitely not lost to the reader, and succinctly sums up his feelings towards the State.”—Ray Ong, Goodreads